Over the weekend of 16 and 17 April 2016, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies co-sponsored the 'Subversion, sabotage, and spying: Political policing and state racism in the UK' conference in London.

The two-day conference, on 16 and 17 April, will hear from a number speakers, including Baroness Doreen Lawrence and John McDonnell MP, who will examine the role and impact of undercover policing and the surveillance of campaign groups.

Writing today in The Guardian, Polly Toynbee considers the pressures faced by police following cuts to social and health budgets. She highlights shrinking police numbers and bemoans the loss of neighbourhood police and poses the following question:

Police officers could become less visible on the streets because police forces aren't managing their budgets properly in the face of funding cuts, warns a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, covered in The Telegraph.

The report says:

Policing in five years' time is likely to look different to now: smaller, less costly and perhaps less visible.

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is pleased to be taking part in the forthcoming conference, Policing the crisis, on Sunday 15 November 2015 in Central London.

Organised by Defend the Right to Protest, this one day event will focus on civil liberties, the criminalisation of protest and the racist demonising of suspect communities. It will provide a space to discuss with a wide range of campaigns, activists, writers and lawyers active around these issues: to share ideas and experiences and to look at ways to build a stronger movement.

On Wednesday 25 March 2015, The Monitoring Group, in collaboration with the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, held a meeting to discuss how to ensure that the judge led inquiry into police spying meets the needs and demands of the victims of police actions.

Alex Massie commenting on The Spectator website today raises the issue of safety and asks the question 'when did it become ok for the police to electrocute children?' New figures obtained from the Home Office show that 400 children had Tasers 'drawn' on them in 2013. The BBC highlights that this is a 37% increase on the previous year.